Afterward
by PaperLed
Summary: After the war. And 8th year. Multi-pairs.
1. Chapter 1

**DRACO**

Draco has watched Harry for years. Like he does now. Harry's on the grounds looking over the lake. His friends are around him, like they always are, but he looks... desolate. He seems comfortable in isolation, as if he likes it best there.

"Harry, fucking, Potter," Draco sighs.

"Maybe he's grown up," Blaise says next to him. "Maybe you should too."

Draco looks at Blaise in profile; he thinks maybe he doesn't really know Blaise. He shrugs, turns back to survey the grounds: the quidditch pitch, the forbidden forest, the whomping willow, the lake. They all look so small, so far away.

"Insightful as ever Blaise but I highly doubt seventeen constitutes growing up."

"Still taking that break then."

Draco chuckles lightly.

"I might be taking that one for a very long time after all that shit," he is quiet, and then, "They're really fucking small aren't they. From up here anyway, fucking ants."

"How fitting," Blaise laughs, "I guess that would make us ants sometimes too."

Draco turns to him again, smiles, "I don't do well with being inconsequential."

Blaise grins, cheekily says, "So we've all seen."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Draco replies turning around, "you coming or what?"

They walk away from the astronomy tower together, their thirst for people watching for the previous moment quenched.

Down in the dungeons, back in Blaise's room, Blaise asks him:

"Would you have come back otherwise?"

"No," Draco says, in a rare moment of openness, "probably not."

Then he pulls out a cigarette and goes to Blaise's open window. He pulls out matches and lights it, inhales. Waits for the clouding calm to settle him.

"I don't know why you didn't do that shit when we were up in the astronomy tower," Blaise grumbles, "you know my room smells like smoke for days after."

"Hardly days," Draco says his lips around the cigarette smiling, "one day at most."

x

Today the first thing Draco notices is that it seems like everyone is laughing in the Great Hall. The charmed ceiling is sparkling stars and the space is filled with raucous laughter - the sounds of happy people. Draco doesn't know why he notices today, but he does and he shifts imperceptibly closer to Blaise. He feels incongruent and the warm presence of Blaise's body soothes him. He isn't hungry tonight – hasn't been hungry for a while – and waits for dessert. He always waits for dessert. When it comes he hears Blaise chuckle,

"You're obscene," he says watching Draco eat.

Draco stifles a smile and carries on eating his dessert. He likes it when Blaise watches him; it is one of his last pleasures, really, besides dessert. It is an echo of a once narcissistic stage he looks back on with nostalgia. Blaise knows this and Draco wonders if he humours him; maybe it's a kind of pick-me-up but he thinks not.

After supper and a shower he sits on the window settee in Blaise's room, cigarette in hand as they get homework done. Draco thanked whichever angels he has left when they found out Blaise was a prefect; Draco lives in Blaise's room and has claimed some semblance of privacy away from the prying eyes of the other eighth year Slytherins in the dorm. And sometimes within those four walls he claims, also, some semblance of normality.

Later there's a fire in the hearth and they sit on sinking couches smoking. Not talking.

"You really should quit," Blaise says.

"Do you think I could?" Draco counters.

"Even if you could I doubt you'd want to."

"My vices and I."

They converse watching the orange flames crackle and the logs shift and turn while the smoke travels straight through to the top of the castle and away somewhere.

"You sleeping over?" Blaise asks which is now customary.

Draco shrugs, as is ritual. He takes out another cigarette, one turns to five.

Draco doesn't go back to the dorm, he never does. It feels exactly like he's alone; something reminiscent of the Manor were he to put a description to it. In a strange twist of paradox, he can't stand to be around other people anymore. Only Blaise; and Blaise has become an extension of himself, another limb.

There'll be a time in the early morning darkness, the witching hours when nightmares are most rife, when Draco will feel the chill of the damp corners of the room and get into bed. Blaise barely shifts anymore; he'll groan slightly, shift a little. And eventually, with loneliness ebbed, Draco will fall asleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**RON and HERMIONE**

"Everything is different." Hermione says, always having been uncomfortable in change.

"What did you expect?" Ron answers from where his head lies pillowed on her chest.

Everything has changed and they have all changed with it; they have had to grow up in the wake of war. This generation walks like one that has seen too much. They are all so weary.

They're two months back and there are still some things not to talk about which people don't; and things that are glaringly obvious that can't be ignored. Like the scorch marks on the side of the castle being rebuilt and the collective exhausted presence of the returned eighth years - the ones not caught in the crossfire.

The school is sitting down to breakfast one morning and Harry looks like he is wondering if, after everything, this is how it's all supposed to fit. Ron notices Harry looks lost sometimes; and when he asks about it, Harry can't quite explain it or explain it away. Worry lines crease Ron's forehead most days.

Hermione notices that Harry doesn't pay attention in classes anymore; she says nothing because after the war he has his reasons. (They all do for doing things they shouldn't and not doing those they should.) The eighth years are sitting in double potions and she watches Harry pull away from gravity, retreat into the easy comfort of floating in the ether. Hermione imagines he sees Snape, maybe - the way he thinks he should always have seen him. In Defense he participates, but only because everything seems to come so easily now, and even then Harry himself is never really present. Hermione wonders if he is remembering Lupin and the few times where things felt good and right. Bins and even Flitwick have retired; McGonagall is purely headmistress now; Snape and Lupin have gone to the place where only thestrals can see. No-one is where they should be.

Later, Hermione is looking at Harry's face by the fire when he says: "Everything is different." And in Harry's voice, with his inflection and tone, everyone present knows exactly what he means. He sounds removed, subdued, weary.

"I walked past Malfoy today," Ron says, "and I instinctively went for my wand remembering what a twat he used to be. I'd grown so used to him then that I fully expected at least a punch in the face; but he didn't. Not hex, not an insult, not even a sneer. And what made it so much worse was that he looked right at me and nodded, properly acknowledged me. I could've taken him pretending I don't exist, I mean he's done it often enough, but I don't think I was quite ready for that."

Hermione looks at him for a long time.

"Maybe you're not quite ready to forgive him yet," she says.

"No, it's not that. I don't think I can forgive anyone; I don't think any of us who were in the front lines in the middle of it all can ever really forgive."

Hermione counters the argument but all Harry thinks is: _Ron i__s right_.

Harry stops her mid-sentence, says: "I think we're all too tired to forgive. Or maybe too tired to care enough to want to forgive."

"Well I forgive him." Hermione says, righteous indignation filling her posture. "I think we just need one person to take the initial step. We're stuck in a rut, don't you see we just need to find a way out."

"Then take the step." Ron says, laughing.

Later still, they all fall asleep to the silence and comfort of each other's breathing. There is a pattern to all those who have seen the casualties of war: they sleep in close together places, worn out and infant-like. There are boogeymen behind the isolation of drawn bed curtains.

x

It's a Friday afternoon. It is uncharacteristically hot for November and everyone is itching for the weekend, but the last lessons seem to be dragging at snail pace. The Defense teacher is called out halfway through the lesson. (The class holds its breath because things like this happen; the burnt side of the castle is filled with residue curses and in in some way or another they're all to blame, it is all on them to rebuild from wreckage.) Everyone drops the exercise as soon as he closes the door behind him. Hermione breathes and heads towards the Slytherins.

"Mal-. Dr-" she takes a deep breath, "Draco."

He turns and he regards her somewhat warily.

"Yes?"

No disgusted stares or mudblood slurs. She exhales.

"It's just -. I'm guessing it's probably been a bit hard since... y'know."

His eyes are sparkling and he looks amused; he reminds her of Dumbledore. She finds the paradox mildly alarming.

"Yeah," Malfoy says, "The war."

The class visibly ripples. Hermione blinks up at him for a bit and exhales audibly.

"Yeah, that," Hermione says eventually, "So, I just wanted to come over here and tell you in case you hadn't y'know figured it out or whatever that I forgive you."

Ron doesn't think he's ever heard Hermione sound so inarticulate; he watches her turn pink and chuckles and Harry chuckles with him. Ron is proud of his girl with her bravery and first steps. The class waits with bated breath for Malfoy's reply:

"It's not for you to forgive."

Malfoy's voice is almost gentle and Hermione blinks rapidly from the raw ache of it.

"Then Harry forgives you," she turns to Harry, "Don't you Harry?"

Harry laughs a little - it is something hollow and humourless. The class recognises it in themselves.

"See," she continues unperturbed, not noting that Harry hasn't actually said anything at all, "Harry forgives yo-"

"Granger," Malfoy is looking straight at her and she doesn't recall ever having been this close to him with no slaps or insults thrown, "it's not for anyone to forgive."

"Even if it was," Zabini interjects from somewhere else in the classroom (rescuing Draco from his own guilt and having to explain), "none of you really believe you can forgive."

"Here, here," says Ron.

Weeks later, in Arithmancy, Hermione is decided and picks the unoccupied seat next to Malfoy by the window. She finishes her work, this being what's easy for her, and turns to him.

"You've changed," Hermione says.

He turns to her, smiling slightly, says,

"No I haven't. You just don't know me, is all."

"But we can all agree you were a right prat for a while there."

He throws his head back and laughs and, though it's empty and hollow, it's an echo of better time laughter.

"I was wasn't I."

"And now?"

"Blaise says I'm stubborn as a mule, incapable of change, and dogmatic to a fault."

"Doesn't sound promising."

"No, no it doesn't." And something like sadness creeps into his tone as if he's telling her something real.

"Did you really hate me?" Somehow Hermione knows this is the real question to ask, the most important one.

"I didn't know you, Granger."

"But you were so..." she trails off remembering and thinks things were simpler when all there was to worry about was Malfoy and his cronies.

"You were a semiotic. You represented something. I seemed to hate you, when it was what you represented that I hated. but I didn't know you -. I don't know you. If I knew you, I could have hated you. Hated those intricacies of personality that make a person - that's how you really learn to hate."

She thinks on their conversation for the rest of the lesson; and he thinks on her amused. They're paths are on a collision course, it seems, for the first time. It is ironic after the past they've shared. Hermione finds the paradox fits.

"Fucking ironic," Ron says to her later.

They're stretched out in bed next to each other. Ron's fingers trail her skin softly as it glows in the late afternoon light. He kisses a path up her stomach and thinks she tastes like she looks: milk and honey and... _something_. He asked her once if you could put a flavour to intelligence and if not he was sure he'd found one. She had laughed and kissed him, deeply and meaningfully.

"Really fucking ironic," Ron repeats holding her against him. "So are you friends or what?"

"I don't think so. I'm... curious?"

"You've never needed my permission." He smiles down at her.

For the rest of the time Ron and Hermione talk saying nothing and things are easier for a bit. They make love in the last stand of the setting sun; their skin pressed in tandem, their lips, their tongues, the post-orgasmic haze.

x

Just before supper Hermione stands at the her window looking down and sees Harry skipping stones on the lake.

"Are you worried about him?" she asks Ron.

"No more or less worried than about anyone else. I think we're past the worrying stage."

She catches up with Malfoy outside the Great Hall when most of the students are already sitting down to eat.

"Draco."

"Granger."

"You should come for supper in Hogsmeade with us."

She sees surprise register on his face by the smallest widening of his eyes and then,

"Yeah, sure, why not. I hope you don't mind if I bring Blaise along, I fear an ambush."

Hermione laughs, "Of course. You never know and all that."

They walk into the Great Hall together smiling and the Hogwarts gossip mill churns out its product.

But the eighth years have blocked up their ears - too tired to care about all the things don't really matter.


End file.
